The Pantry Reconfiguration Part 3 – The Pasta Excitation

Week 2 of the dietary challenge done and dusted.  I found it much easier this week, and I think it’s primarily because of the meal planning.  Meal Planning – it’s like alcohol free days for me – you know you SHOULD do it, but really, in the back of your head, you know it’s not cool and hip and it’s far groovier to fly by the seat of your pants.  Yeah, I’m a rebel on a road to nowhere, hate in my eyes, don’t ask for me tomorrow,’cos I’ll be gone on a one way ticket to oblivion…

But I digress.  I have been described as possessing a (somewhat misguided) sense of confidence, and that was certainly boosted this week through menu planning and getting a bit more hard core about what really needed to be bought.  In summary, we spent about $10.00 more this week on groceries, but we did splash out a bit over the weekend (see below) and I didn’t blow almost a week’s worth of budget getting pissed with the girls.  Turns out, it IS cheaper to get untidy at home…J

I bought my lunch twice this week, once through sheer laziness (Thursday) and as I was meeting a friend (Friday).  After a couple of jelly free days, Son&Heir is back into the artificial colours and flavours with a vengeance.  As foreseen, no tuna was consumed this week.  I am going to try and face the remaining tins next week….sigh….

Week 2 Menu

	LUNCH	DINNER	FROM THE PANTRY
SATURDAY	Left over veggie curry	Vietnamese glazed salmon and wilted bok choy	Salmon from supermarket Bok Choy from market Glaze ingredients from Pantry
SUNDAY	Sprats on toast (turns out we have a lot of them too!)	Stuffed Capsicums (with Mexican rice)	Capsicums from supermarket All other ingredients from pantry
MONDAY	Cheese and Salad (me) Left over rice& fetta, fruit and cake (S&H)	Cannelloni with spinach, ricotta and walnuts	Cannelloni, walnuts, tinned tomatoes, tomato paste from Pantry Spinach from market Ricotta from supermarket
TUESDAY	Left over cannelloni (me) Packed lunch (S&H)	Thai Green Veggie curry and rice	Green curry sauce, rice and coconut milk powder from Pantry Veggies from market
WEDNESDAY	Cheese and Salad (me) Packed lunch (S&H)	Sandwich (me – meeting) Take away noodles (boys)	I had a late meeting where sandwiches were provided.  LSH and S&H decided to go noodles.
THURSDAY	Take out sushi (me) Baked Beans, fruit and cake (S&H) Take out Chinese (LSH)	Chicken wings and salad	Chicken wings from freezer, marinade ingredients from the Pantry Salad veggies from the market/garden
FRIDAY	Butter chicken curry (me) Packed lunch (S&H) Left over curry (LSH)	Thai rice noodle soup with prawns	Rice noodles, stock from the Pantry Prawns from freezer Veggies from supermarket

Total grocery expenditure for the week was about $116.00, which would have been less if I had not bought the salmon.  In fact, if I had not bought the salmon, we would have come in less than Week 1’s expenditure, with fewer meals out.  Brilliant.  Or maybe just lucky?

Week 3 is already shaping up to be a tough one.  I have started menu planning and there are already a couple of challenges apparent.  One, the Pantry is actually looking leaner and my choices are more limited.  And two, I don’t want to fall into the comfort zone of having the same meals week in, week out.  So, can I rustle up a diverse menu using a more limited range of Pantry options?  Or will I just give in and nip down to Flip Burgers when it all gets too hard?

Let’s find out shall we….?

PS  Thanks to everyone who has read the blog so far and been kind enough to say nice things to me (some to my face!).  As always, your thoughts and suggestions are most welcome. J